I will in a moment. I should like to make a little progress first.
If the referendum is to be conducted properly, we cannot allow the Electoral Commission’s report to be published so close to the date on which it takes place that the commission’s proposals cannot be properly considered by the Government and then implemented. We must specify a date in order to provide a clear
deadline for the commission, which does not always act in a timely manner. The amendments propose various alternative dates because at the time when they were tabled there was another group of amendments to be considered and I did not know when they would be debated, but all those dates precede the proposed date of the referendum, namely before the end of 2017.